Businesses often expend significant resources in determining the location of various assets within a particular area. In particular, carriers utilize information regarding the location of various assets to streamline shipping and delivery processes, and to provide customers with additional information regarding the current location of an asset being shipped to a customer location. A carrier may be a traditional carrier, such as United Parcel Service of America, FedEx, DHL, courier services, the United States Postal Service, Canadian Post, freight companies (e.g. truck-load, less-than-truckload, rail carriers, air carriers, ocean carriers, etc.) and/or the like. However, a carrier may also be a nontraditional carrier, such as Amazon, Google, Uber, ride-sharing services, crowd-sourcing services, retailers, and/or the like.
The process of locating an asset and recording its location is generally a labor-intensive process requiring a significant amount of skill. Moreover, presently utilized systems and methods for locating assets result in an asset location being determined only periodically, thus resulting in significant periods of time during which the location of the asset cannot be confirmed. For example, common carriers have historically utilized scanners to read asset identifiers located on each of a plurality of assets, and to associate a scan location with each asset identifier. In certain instances, sort personnel may place the scanned asset into a shipping container, vehicle trailer, delivery car, building, area of a building, and/or the like (collectively referred to as “receptacles”) such that the asset may be transported to a new location.
Sort personnel must rely on personal skill in determining the optimal location within a receptacle to place each asset to be loaded. However, with improper training or lack of supervision, sort personnel may load receptacles such that a significant amount of underutilized space remains. Thus, additional receptacles must be utilized to store or transport assets throughout the carrier's shipping network.
In various circumstances, sort personnel may be required to place assets at predetermined sort locations within a receptacle. For example, when loading delivery cars with which delivery drivers may deliver individual assets to their delivery locations, sort personnel may be instructed to place assets within the delivery car at specified locations to facilitate asset retrieval when the delivery driver is at a delivery location. This loading process requires the sort personnel to expend significant time ensure the asset is placed in the correct location, and periodically sort personnel place assets in incorrect locations.
Therefore, a need exists in the art for consistent and accurate concepts for locating assets. Such concepts may require substantially less skill in loading receptacles, and may facilitate optimal space usage in loading receptacles.